


Open your eyes, look up to the skies and see

by Azzy



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: First Kiss, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining Crowley (Good Omens), Post-Canon, Protective Aziraphale (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-13
Updated: 2019-06-13
Packaged: 2020-05-07 09:29:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19206598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azzy/pseuds/Azzy
Summary: For some entirely unfathomable reason, after the end of the world hadn’t happened, Crowley didn’t go back to his flat for a solid month.





	Open your eyes, look up to the skies and see

**Author's Note:**

> WELLP, that adaptation was like an electric shock to the long-dormant part of my brain that not only wants to engage with fandom but also wants to _write things_. Thank you to the amazing Demus for looking over this and making brilliant suggestions and being just generally the best ever.

For some entirely unfathomable reason, after the end of the world hadn’t happened, Crowley didn’t go back to his flat for a solid month. 

At first it was because he and Aziraphale were far too busy getting outrageously drunk on expensive wine; it was part elated celebration, part giddy recklessness. After the shock of taking Aziraphale’s form - of seeing Heaven’s gates open for him once again and feeling the last of that ancient, ancient sorrow and loss evaporate as the bastards tried to kill one of their own - the angel's proximity was a bone-deep comfort, one that Crowley intended to take advantage of for as long as he could. Aziraphale, ever a chatty drunk, rambled on and on about some antique furniture sale that was coming up, and Crowley allowed his eyelids to droop and his head to fall back, murmuring occasional agreement. The angel had a very comfortable sofa; more frivolous throw-cushions than Crowley was used to, but he wasn’t about to complain when they’d _won_ , they’d made it, he was here and Aziraphale was here and he could finally allow himself to relax without that nagging end-of-the-world unease that had plagued him for the last eleven years. 

Aziraphale’s voice slowed, maybe stopped altogether. Crowley half-smiled, allowing drowsiness to overtake him, warm and more than a little inebriated and _safe_. He felt Aziraphale hesitate, then fingers brushed warm against his cheek as Aziraphale oh-so-gently, oh-so-carefully removed the sunglasses from Crowley’s face; Crowley turned sleepily into the touch, but it was gone almost as soon as he registered it. A warm weight settled over him - a blanket? - and then he slept, deep and dreamless.

He didn’t know if Aziraphale slept, the first night, but he woke up to the sound of the angel humming tunelessly as he pottered around the bookshop, straightening books on their shelves. Crowley lay there for a moment, blinking in the filtered sunlight and wondering hazily if Aziraphale would offer him coffee. 

“Morning, sleepy-head,” Aziraphale said, abominably chirpy. “Oh Crowley, did you go to sleep drunk?”

“Mmf,” said Crowley. He pushed himself upright, blinking furiously, and snapped his fingers. “Ugh.”

Aziraphale looked as if he were trying to hide a smile; he was failing, of course, the corners of his mouth twitching. “You really ought to have learned by now.” 

“I like the full experience,” Crowley grated, shuddering as the hangover relinquished its grasp, and shoved aside the tartan blanket that had twisted itself about his legs. “ _Ugh_. Any coffee?”

“Dear boy, you know I don’t drink that kind of thing,” Aziraphale said primly, and then, relenting, “and you know perfectly well that there’s some in the kitchen.”

So there was coffee, and there was breakfast. That lazy golden day spilled effortlessly into the next, and it felt like barely a day had passed it had been a week; and then Crowley talked Aziraphale into sacking off the antiques fair to go to France for a fortnight just _because_ (Crowley had spent a good deal of time in France at the turn of the eighteenth century and had been thoroughly disillusioned by the human-devised horrors of the French Revolution, but French wine was too great a draw to resist). After that came another lazy week of reliving the not-the-end of the world, and then it just seemed natural that Crowley should convert the sofa into more of a pull-out bed. (He’d long since withered a few of the cushions. No soft furnishings should be that plump and cheerful.) 

He had slept every night since they’d defied Heaven and Hell and it was becoming a bit of a habit. 

Aziraphale noticed the new furniture a few days later. He’d been pottering around the bookshop all morning and Crowley, lulled into a semi-doze by the late morning sun filtering in through the window and warming his bare skin, had been too relaxed to move; then all of a sudden he heard a soft exclamation and Aziraphale was staring at him, feather duster in one hand and a first edition of _Sense and Sensibility_ in the other. 

“Good morning,” Aziraphale said.

Crowley sat upright, slowly and carefully. “Morning.” He thought about magicking a shirt, but then decided against it out of sheer curiosity, because Aziraphale was - blushing? Blushing.

“I, ah,” Aziraphale said. “You - you know, I could have just - I mean, the flat above the shop does have a spare…” he trailed off, and swallowed, eyes skittering sideways as he put the book down on top of one of the less-precarious piles on a side table. “You know, Crowley, I haven’t heard from my side since - well.”

Crowley blinked at the non-sequitur. “Yeah? I haven’t heard a squeak from down below either.” He snapped his fingers for a shirt, which obediently appeared, and raised an eyebrow at the sofa bed, which transformed hastily back into a sofa. 

Aziraphale was worrying at his bottom lip, staring at Crowley again, although the startled, rabbit-in-headlights look that Crowley had half-registered had gone from his eyes. “Yes, well, I mean, I know we thought - but it seems - so strange that they wouldn’t have noticed that you’re, you’re - “

“Here,” Crowley said. He didn’t elaborate. 

“Yes.”

They looked at each other. Crowley swallowed. “What if,” he said, “we just - stayed - like this? Besties, roomies, all that.”

Aziraphale stared back at him and Crowley braced himself for rejection; six thousand years he’d been trying, always asking, always cajoling, tempting, _waiting_ , and he knew that it was different now, but still Aziraphale was Aziraphale and the answer had always, always been - 

“Well,” Aziraphale said carefully, “I don’t really see why not.”

Crowley just gaped at him, out-manouevered.. He was aware that he was crushing a much-abused cushion in one hand, that Aziraphale looked a little lost, that there was no one else in the shop despite the late hour. “I don’t want to inconvenience you,” he said slowly.

Aziraphale blinked, and Crowley thought wildly _too soon_ although how could it possibly be, but Aziraphale just said, “Rubbish, dear boy. I - I’ve got used to the company.”

 _After six thousand years? About time_ , Crowley wanted to say, but he swallowed the lump of centuries-old disappointment in his throat and said, “I could always sell the flat.”

“You - sell the - oh, dear, I suppose - but what about if, if - if it all goes wrong? You’ll need somewhere to go.”

Crowley groaned, tossing the much-abused cushion aside in frustration. “Oh for - they’re not coming for us, angel, they’re not going to -”

“That’s not what I meant,” Aziraphale blurted out, and then looked a little horrified with himself. “I mean, I mean, I meant it would be safest in case - in case you decide you don’t want to stay.”

Crowley gaped up at him. “In case I _what_?”

“It’s a big change,” Aziraphale said defensively and Crowley laughed, loud and harsh, in disbelief.

“A big - you seriously think I’m going to - no, you know what, angel, fuck this.” Crowley surged to his feet, suddenly furious. “Six thousand fucking years of wanting you and you think I’m going to _leave_?” 

Aziraphale was staring at him, eyes wide. Something had broken inside Crowley, a thin and age-worn barrier that gave way before something bitter and hot and desperate, and he snarled in frustration and surged forward into Aziraphale’s space; Aziraphale’s shoulders pressed back against the shelves, the duster clattered to the floor at their feet, and Crowley thought, triumphant and savage, _nowhere to run_. 

They had been close, but not this close, not since they’d stood in the darkest shadows of the night, in a deserted London suburb, and grasped each other by the hands and switched bodies. 

Not since he’d sent Aziraphale to Hell.

The bookshop doorbell jingled. Aziraphale’s breath hitched and he looked up, met Crowley’s eyes, and Crowley’s stupid, inconvenient conscience said _enough_.

He stepped back, panting. The anger was fading but the desperate hot pain of it remained, and he felt the world spin, not quite in control. Aziraphale stayed where he was, one hand braced on the bookshelf and staring at Crowley with an expression Crowley couldn’t read, and Crowley knew he had to leave. “I’ll just go and check on the car, won’t be long,” he said inanely, and half-ran out of the bookshop, leaving Aziraphale and his too-bright, infinitely sad eyes behind.

The Bentley was fine, of course (Crowley would have known if it wasn’t; he had a complex, not entirely earthly security system set up and would know within milliseconds if anyone so much as breathed on it the wrong way. It relied on a few human gimmicks and a few things that would probably be standard on new cars in around 150 years’ time). Crowley drove it thundering down the road past the bookshop on the corner and at an inconvenient crawl around the very frustrating one-way system (his own invention) that led to his own flat, parked it even more illegally that it had been before and then sat in the driver’s seat, staring sightlessly out at the busy street.

When dusk began to fall, he went into his flat, stepping mechanically over the pile of shapeless clothing that was all that was left of the demon Ligur, and spent a grim and sleepless night tormenting himself with memories of hellfire and vengeance.

*

It was a full twenty-four hours before Aziraphale was pounding on the door.

“Oh,” Crowley drawled, pulling it open and lounging against the doorframe in the most insouciant pose he could muster, “sorry, angel, did you miss me?” 

“I thought you’d gone - I was _worried_ ,” Aziraphale said reproachfully and Crowley felt all the golden warmth of that moment, soaked it up like a shameless manipulative sponge. “Where have you been?”

“Here,” Crowley said, standing aside to let him in. 

"But, why, but you -" Aziraphale looked terrible (for Aziraphale), his bow tie askew, his hair even wilder than usual; Crowley resisted the urge to snap his fingers and restore it to order. "Crowley, did I - I should feel dreadful if I, if I said something -"

"No," Crowley said helplessly, and raked a hand through his own hair. Of course Aziraphale was blaming himself. He was an angel, it was his job to feel bad for things that weren't his fault. “No. I - I shouldn’t have -”

“Let me make you a cup of tea,” came the reply, coaxing. “And then, and then we can discuss - everything and - only please,” Aziraphale said in a rush, “Crowley, don’t leave again.”

It definitely used to be easier to withstand that pleading gaze. Crowley rolled his eyes for show and stalked towards the kitchen. “Earl Grey?” He kept a selection of tea in the cupboard for Aziraphale, although he could count on one hand the number of times the angel had visited his flat; Aziraphale was thoroughly against minimalism and menace, and those had been Crowley’s main design principles when decorating. “Assam?” He snapped his fingers at the kettle, which obediently began to boil. Aziraphale always insisted that the tea had to brew properly, the way that humans made it, and Crowley definitely wasn't up for that argument this morning. He sneaked a glance back at the angel, relieved to find that Aziraphale had followed him and was eyeing the steel-and-black decor with deep suspicion. “I’ve even got some cocoa somewhere if you’d -”

Aziraphale made an unintelligible noise and suddenly something like a speeding train crashed into Crowley’s side, hard enough to knock all the breath from his body as he slammed against the counter, hardwood splintering against his hip. He dimly registered the sound of something crashing onto the floor - dimly, because all of his senses were overwhelmed by Aziraphale, around him; Aziraphale, the breath rasping in his throat; Aziraphale, his fingers like a vice around Crowley’s wrist and his face full of the kind of terror Crowley had never seen before and never wanted to see again.

“Aziraphale,” he choked out, winded, the words a hiss. The angel was half-twisted, staring at something over his own shoulder, and Crowley struggled against his grip to see what it was; white feathers filled his vision, a cacophony of purest snow. “Aziraphale!”

Aziraphale twisted back to stare at him, eyes wild. “You used it,” he choked out and then Crowley saw it.

The tartan flask, lid removed, lying on its side next to the mug tree.

Crowley exhaled, slowly. “Aziraphale,” he said again. “Aziraphale, it’s - it’s empty.” He’d not told Aziraphale the full story of the fight in his flat - it hadn’t seemed important, somehow, beside all the events that had followed after. He reached up with his free hand, gripped Aziraphale’s shoulder, felt him trembling. “I used it on Ligur and Hastur before I escaped. Aziraphale. I’m fine. I’m _fine_.”

“You could have been _killed_ ,” Aziraphale said, and the room was still filled with white and with a jolt, Crowley understood; the speeding train had been the full force of an angel’s desperate leap, wings and all. That was why the wood had splintered (if Crowley had been human, he thought wildly, he would probably have broken bones). “You could have been killed! Crowley, Crowley -”

“It’s okay, I’m okay,” Crowley said helplessly. Aziraphale’s grip relaxed on his wrist and the angel stepped back just enough to look him over as if unsure whether Crowley was really still there. Crowley ripped the sunglasses off his own face and dropped them onto the counter, suddenly unable to bear them, rubbing a hand over his face and forcing himself to relax; the shock of Aziraphale’s leap had sparked some ancient defensive instinct, and his body was trying to insist that it was fanged and coiled and scaled. “I’m not going anywhere, angel, you can’t get rid of me, remember?”

“Is it all gone?”

“Yes.”

“Stay there,” Aziraphale ordered, and the room abruptly became less filled with white. Crowley obediently stayed where he was as Aziraphale picked up the flask and threw it in the bin and then waved a hand over the counter (Crowley was pretty sure that all the water had evaporated by now but he wasn’t about to point that out if the act of vanishing it made Aziraphale feel better). “Crowley?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t ever, ever do that again,” Aziraphale said, and then Crowley got the shock of his life because Aziraphale’s arms were around him, Aziraphale’s face was pressed into his shoulder and Aziraphale’s hair was soft against his cheek. “I - I don’t think I could - do this without you. Do you understand? I don’t think I’d - it’s been tormenting me for years, you with that flask and I - I didn’t mean it, you must know I didn’t mean a word of it.”

“Didn’t mean what?” Crowley said, dazed.

“When I said I didn’t like you,” Aziraphale mumbled, and Crowley laughed.

“Well I knew _that_ ,” he said, and stroked a hesitant, wondering hand down Aziraphale’s back, over the torn jacket where wings had appeared. Angel wings, the full blinding glory of Heaven’s light, had appeared, for him, for one of the Fallen. “Aziraphale? I’m sorry for yesterday, in the bookshop.”

“No,” Aziraphale said decidedly. “No, my dear, that’s just not going to cut it any more. I’m afraid I’ve been a bit of a coward where you’re concerned, Crowley, and I was always so afraid that Heaven and Hell would find us and they’d - they’d tear you apart, that I’d never ever see you again and all because I - I couldn’t stay away from you, even when I knew that I should, but I wondered, after so many centuries and those - things that I said, if you still, you know. If you still wanted me as - as more than - an acquaintance. And I wanted to give you a choice.”

Crowley’s fingers reflexively tightened on the torn jacket. “I’ve always had a choice,” he said, and drew back to look into Aziraphale’s eyes, to see his own wonder reflected back. “I’ve always chosen you.” And then, because there were no rules any more, “I - I don’t know how to not love you. I tried.”

Crowley saw Aziraphale’s eyes flick down to his mouth and up again, like they had yesterday in the bookshop. And Aziraphale didn’t say _but demons can’t love_ , didn’t question, didn’t hesitate, just closed the gap between them, and Crowley wound fierce fingers in his hair and held on as if he’d found salvation itself.

The kiss was what humans would have done, right down to the still fragile moment afterwards where they paused, only a faint breath apart, eyes closed. “I love you more than creation,” Aziraphale said finally, whisper-soft, and Crowley didn’t say _but that’s not possible_ , because there was nothing that wasn’t possible any more.

The tea, and the rest of the world - Heaven and Hell included - went forgotten for a very long time.


End file.
